


Remember

by someonestolemyshoes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Levi - Freeform, Levi Ackerman - Freeform, as promised, because i'm shipper trash, chapter 69, child!levi in the first chapter, kid levi, second and third chapter are levihan trash, there will be a levihan epilogue to go with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3906079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someonestolemyshoes/pseuds/someonestolemyshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He is ten, frail and sickly and oh-so-tired, the day Kenny boots open the door and converses with the corpse in the bed."</p>
<p>In the wake of the most recent chapter - Levi remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mild spoilers for chapter 69

He is five years old, the first time he remembers being left on the doorstep with a kiss to the forehead and a whispered  _stay close by,_  etched against his hairline with shaking lips and a bone-dry tongue. He remembers being hungry, and tired, and the air is thin and flowing and bitter where it ruffles the fabric of his too-big shirt and nips at the exposed skin of his ankles.

He remembers sucking his sleeve between his teeth and settling against the cold brick beneath the window sill, watching shadows cross back and forth through the street, doors opening and closing, people shrouded in darkness creeping between houses; low, dim candle light hiding in the hollows of their cheeks and their deep, sunken eyes. He remembers the first noises filtering out into the street from the cracked window panes above him – muffled words he doesn’t understand; a lilt of laughter that is  _almost_ familiar, but not quite; the creak of the bed springs; thuds and rustles and groans that sounded almost pained.

But not quite.

He remembers the whip of the wind – blisteringly cold air billowing down from the stairwells and blazing through the market town – and the damp, musky smell of the bricks he uses as pillows for his sleep-heavy head.

* * *

He is six, the first time he remembers feeling  _painfully_  hungry. The kind of hunger that gnaws at your stomach, burns and stings and aches all at once; the kind of hunger that twists your gut and tightens your throat and makes your head light and sickly and somehow heavy, too. The kind of hunger that makes you desperate.

He remembers crying; remembers the sweep of calloused thumbs beneath his eyes, the press of shaking kisses over his tears and the mumble of cracked apologies against the peeking bones of his cheeks. He remembers _sorry sorry sorry_ , remembers  _there’ll be more tomorrow_ , remembers  _just hold on until then_.

He remembers, later that night, when the front door is locked and his bare feet are pressed to the cold floor, his toes crossed over one another and twisting into the dirt, the unbearable  _hunger_. He remembers wandering down the street, the soles of his feet hard and numb to the scratch of sharp pebbles and broken glass, and rummaging a reluctant hand through the black bags piled high in the alley. Rats squeak and shuffle around him – one runs right over his toes, it’s little claws catching the skin and peeling it away – and he continues searching until he finds the bitten core of an apple.

He remembers slotting it between his teeth and sucking the juice from it – it tastes bitter and sour and old, but it is nourishment and instinct tells him to eat what he can, when he can.

He cannot afford to be picky.

He remembers settling back beneath the window sill with the apple core in hand, drowning out the noises breaking through the walls, rubbing blood and dirt and garbage from between his toes and dreaming of a world so very different from the only one he knows.

* * *

He is seven, the first time he remembers tasting warm food.

It isn’t all that much, just a small loaf of bread from the bakers, but it is fresh and warm and  _delicious_ , and his mother smiles –  _laughs_ , even – as she tears away a chunk and feeds it into his greedy palms. He pops it between his teeth and savours the heat on his tongue, and his mother does the same, and he remembers the whites of her teeth shining at him in the darkness. 

They sit on the bed – the sheets are freshly laundered and the smell of lavender wafts up every time he moves and it is such a luxury to feel clean that he finds himself shuffling against the soft fabric every few seconds, just to lift the smell into the air one more time – under the light of a low, orange candle, and they share the loaf between in companionable silence.

He is seven, the first time he remembers feeling  _happy_.

* * *

He is eight, the first time he remembers seeing –  _really_  seeing – the bones protruding at her hips and cheeks and joints, the knots of her spine bulging like tiny, rounded mountains as she curves herself over the rim of the sink to rinse the soap from her hair. He remembers thinking her skin looks too tight, paper-thin and stretched over her frame, almost as though it were too small to fit her.

He remembers watching the light dance in the concave flesh of her cheeks, remembers the way the flame flickers, gives the room an almost  _warm_  glow, remembers spying the purpling marks on her hips that remind him of dirty fingerprints on freshly painted walls; they mar her, ruin an image otherwise so clean, and he washes his hands in the water trailing from the tips of her hair because somehow, it makes him feel a little better.

He remembers the way she sways when she stands upright. She is tall and too-thin, her gut cratered in between poking ribs and jutting hips, and he remembers wondering if she’s always been this gaunt.

He remembers pulling his shirt –  _her_ shirt, because they cannot afford new clothes and he has finally, finally outgrown his own – over his head and cupping the dirty, used water from the basin into his hands, and he remembers seeing his reflection in the mirror and wondering if he’s always looked this gaunt, too.

He is eight years old when awareness first creeps into his bones, and it makes him feel sick and heavy and when he takes himself out of the house that night and tucks his knees to his chest beneath the sill, he thinks things are more hopeless than they’ve ever been before.

* * *

He is nine, the first time he cleans the house. He remembers the realization, as his mother lies beneath the sheets, sweat-slicked hair pasted to her brow and cheeks and her head tossing back and forth over the pillow, that cleaning – scrubbing, sweeping, dusting,  _anything_  – might kill the germs blackening her lungs and paralyzing the breath in her throat. He convinces himself that scrubbing the toilet and the sink and the floor and the walls until his palms are raw might chase away the fever boiling her from the inside out.

He remembers conning himself into thinking that a fresh home can somehow reverse the carnage tearing away at her chest. He remembers thinking that if he can just get things  _clean_ , if he can take away the dirt and the grime and the  _filth_  that is making his skin crawl where he stands, that he can somehow fix her.

* * *

He is ten, the weather cold and cruel and bitter, the cracks in the windows rattling and threatening to give under the whirling wind, when he rolls over in the small bed to find his mother’s frame, hard and cold and still, pressed into the mattress beside him.

He remembers shaking her; he digs his tiny, spotless fingertips into the skin of her forearm and he shakes her with all the strength he can muster. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. He remembers touching her face, remembers thinking she doesn’t look like  _her_  anymore. The skin is slack around her mouth and cheeks and jaw, and without feelings and expressions and  _life_  pulsing through her veins, she looks like a stranger.

He remembers sitting beside her, for a while. He tucks his knees to his chest and folds his arms around his shins and watches the light from the street flicker over her face. He remembers wishing she looked peaceful in death, wishing the horrors of their lifetime had disappeared when she’d breathed her last breath and she’d been left in quiet, restful bliss for the rest of forever, but instead she looks morphed and pained and after a while he can’t bear the thought of sitting beside her any longer.

The floor is cold and splintering and he sets himself at the foot of the bed, his back pressed to the cool brick wall, and tucks himself up as small as possible in the darkness. He remembers feeling dirty, itches to wash her from his skin but they have no water left, so instead he strips himself bare of the clothes he’d slept in and pulls out the only clean shirt left in the drawer. It still smells fresh, like lavender, and he peels it over his frame and pulls the collar up to his nose.

He remembers the smell as one day turns into two, and two into three, and he remembers the buzz of flies hovering around the bed sheets. He remembers watching one land against the corner of her slackened mouth, remembers watching it tip-toe over her chapped lips and dry teeth, remembers it crawling along her gums and disappearing into the cavern of her mouth, and he remembers turning away to spit frothing stomach acid onto the floor.

He is ten, frail and sickly and oh-so-tired, the day Kenny boots open the door and converses with the corpse in the bed.

He barely remembers saying a word, but Kenny turns to him and says  _who are you?_  And he thinks the blurring thoughts in his head must have made their way from his tongue without his consent. He remembers feeling exhausted, a tiredness seeping through his bones and into the very heart of him, the kind of tired that makes joints ache and stomachs turn and eyes sting.

He doesn’t remember much, after that.

* * *

He is twelve, strong and well-fed and not quite brave, not quite fearless, but close enough, when he remembers watching Kenny’s back disappear into the crowd. He remembers the feel of blood slick between his fingers, warm against his palm and grinding into the wood grain of the knife’s handle.

He remembers the sagging of his shoulders, the warmth of a body quivering in fear – fear of  _him_ \- between his knees, the cold, unnerving weight settling in his gut as he watches the closest thing to family he has left walk away without a word.

He remembers wondering  _why_. He remembers, as the night draws in and he finds shelter in an abandoned shop, dust lifting from the boxes he settles himself between, thinking that he must have done something wrong, something to burden or to disappoint. Why else would he be abandoned?

He is twelve, strong and well-fed and the farthest from brave he’s ever been, the first time he remembers feeling lonely.


	2. Chapter 2

He is years younger than he feels, the first time he remembers cooking a meal for somebody else. 

* * *

He remembers sitting on the couch, one leg folded neatly over the other, peeling the skin from an apple with his knife, while Farlan sits across from him at the table, slender fingers segmenting an orange onto a piece of tissue. There is peel scattered on the table-top and Levi bristles; Farlan is still learning the standards of hygiene that Levi lives up to, and when Levi clears his throat and Farlan twists to look at him, he slides a handkerchief over his blade and raises a brow at the mess.

“Clean it up,” he says, and Farlan scrapes the peel onto his palm and drops it in the waste bin.

Levi remembers the growl of Farlan’s stomach as he savours a segment of orange against his tongue; remembers the way he holds it behind his teeth and sucks on the flavour, remembers the hollow of his cheeks and the purse of his lips and the way his eyes linger on the remaining pieces, fingers itching to eat just one more slice, but instead he wraps what is left in the tissue and stores it away for later. 

They are not afraid of stealing; it’s how they make ends meet, after all – theft and threats and acts Levi will never be able to forget – but what little they are paid goes on rent for an apartment with full furnishings and running water and crack-free windows and locks on the door, and there is scarcely a penny left over for food. But Levi doesn’t like the idea of stealing for himself.  

He remembers leaving the room without a word and donning his cloak, knife finding its place in his belt, and he tells Farlan to clean while he is away. He won’t be long.

He remembers the chill of the night air, misting on his breath as he slips down a back alley and into the shadows. The vendors store their stocks overnight in warehouses not far from their apartment, and though security is tight and vigilant, Levi is confident he can get what he needs and be back within the hour.

He doesn’t like to remember what happens next, so when he arrives home with a heavy-laden bag beneath his cloak and blood on his handkerchief, he is thankful when Farlan doesn’t ask questions.

It is the first time he lights the stove; the gas smells thick and toxic, burns the inside of his nostrils and sticks to the back of his throat, but once the fire ignites and burns it away he is left with nothing but the faint scent of smoke and the sizzle of cooking meat.

He remembers almost burning the food. Levi isn’t used to cooking; he has always eaten as well as he can, but the food has always been raw or precooked. But the image of his friend – the only person in this world, now, he would call himself close to, say he cares about – starving over a measly slice of orange makes his stomach clench.

He remembers telling Farlan to clean up behind him, to wash the pans and utensils he uses to prepare their food, and when everything is done he washes some unused plates and dishes the items between them.

They eat meat and bread and vegetables, and it is so much that they almost can’t finish it all. Almost.

* * *

Levi remembers sweeping the floor – night has fully fallen, what little light that creeps down from the world above completely extinguished – when Farlan asks him  _why_.

He leans on the brush handle, watching Farlan with a measured gaze, and Farlan asks again, “Why do you need to keep everything so  _clean?_ ”

Levi remembers telling him he can leave, if he doesn’t like the arrangement, but Farlan shakes his head and says, “It doesn’t bother me. I’m just curious. 

Levi remembers telling him to go to bed. He doesn’t  _want_  to explain himself. He doesn’t want to tell Farlan that everything must be kept bleached and brushed and polished because otherwise, disease might creep back in and take more from him. He doesn’t want to tell him that the bones that peek so openly above the collar of his shirt make his skin crawl, make him  _remember_.

He watches Farlan leave, then continues sweeping. He remembers thinking that there will  _always_  be food on the table, that the table will always be clean, that he will never let those he care about succumb to filth and starvation and disease and  _death_  in this hell-hole.

* * *

At first, Isabel is just another mouth to feed.

He remembers her stumbling upon them, young and head-strong and naïve; only a teen, and already so filled with hatred for the world she is trapped in, already so eager to see the sky. She is a burden, an unfortunate consequence.

He shares their meal between three, the first night she stays with them. She is tired and grumpy and there is dust smudged across her cheek, and he remembers telling her to clean herself up before she eats. She makes a scathing, irate comment about his obsession with cleanliness but does as she’s told, because food is non-negotiable and she’s never seen a plate so full.

They do grow close, over time. He remembers when she first calls him  _brother_ ; his stomach turns and he can do nothing, say nothing but ruffle the hair at the top of her head and shove her away to continue polishing the window frame.

* * *

He remembers the first day she gets sick. It’s just a cold; a runny nose, a cough, headache and fever, but the pallor of her skin and the  _heat_  she’s producing makes his blood run cold. She is in bed, Farlan by her side, hands ringing a wash cloth over a small basin of water, and Levi scrubs  _everything_. He wipes the doors and the windows and the floors, scrubs the stove, the table, the benches, washes the sinks and the bath and the toilet until they shine, pulls out each and every plate, cup and utensil they own and washes until his fingers go numb.  

He remembers thinking things were never clean  _enough_  in this world. That sickness and disease would always creep through the cracks and infect and ravage and  _kill_. He remembers thinking the only chance they stand is to leave. To feel clean, fresh air on their faces and in their lungs, to live in the light, up in the world above.

* * *

He doesn’t remember growing close to Hange.

He remembers her being the only person to talk to him after Isabel and Farlan died. He was sullen and standoffish and plain  _rude_ , and yet she stomped her foot and dug in her heels and she stayed. And somewhere along the way, he grew to like it.

The first time he bathes her, forces her fully-clothed into the waiting bath water, she is furious. He remembers her scolding him beneath the foam piled atop her head as he lathers shampoo into her days-greasy hair. He remembers her shrugging out of her sodden uniform, remembers her removing the bindings around her chest and sitting, shamelessly naked, in the tub with her arms folded and her lips curled in a scowl.

He remembers realising for the first time that Hange Zoe is a woman.

He eyes the marks that mar her skin as he runs a cloth over her. The straps from the gear leave bruises and scars; there are defined lines on her chest and hips and legs – raised, red welts down her shins and up her thighs – and there are scars from other things, too. Levi remembers one beneath her left breast (he knows it now, knows every mark on her better than the back of his own hand) and when he runs his hands over her rib cage to wash the dirt away his fingers brush over it, and she hisses through her teeth. He doesn’t ask what it’s from, or when she got it, but the tender, reddened skin around it tells him it’s still fresh.

He remembers towel-drying her hair when he’s done. He empties the bath and wraps her in cloth, and while she dries her skin he scrubs the soap from the tub, wipes the plug and the taps and the drain until everything is as it was before.

She flees once she’s dried, runs from the room with a waved thanks and a towel still braced against her chest, says something about  _getting back to her research,_ and  _this was fun, let’s do it again,_ and Levi cleans the mess she’s left in her wake. Hange Zoe always leaves a mess.

* * *

The first time he cooks for her, she hasn’t eaten or slept in a couple of days, too tied up in her findings to care about looking after herself.  

He remembers worrying. He worries that she is dirty and hungry, that she will get sick or starve and he  _knows_  it’s ridiculous, knows she wouldn’t let things get that far, but he can’t help the anxiety gnawing at his stomach as he stirs broth in a pan and checks on his baking bread. It isn’t much; Erwin is budget-strict and there’s a daily ration of supplies that can be used, and he has had to make do with what was left over.

The broth is reheated, though Levi has added more vegetables and seasoning, and the bread is fresh-made. She is going to eat, and she’s going to eat well.

He remembers taking the food to her quarters. He knocks, but she doesn’t answer, and when he pushes the door she is hunched over her desk, scribbling furiously over some papers beneath a low-burning candle. Levi sighs, and knocks his fist against the door again.

He remembers the dark circles beneath her eyes when she turns to look at him, bruises like half-moons sinking her sockets and hollowing her cheeks. She smiles, tired but enthusiastic as always, and Levi manoeuvres through the _mess_  that makes up the majority of her room, and looks for an empty space to leave the tray.

The desk is cluttered with papers and pencils and notebooks and inkwells, and Hange brushes an armful of it aside so that Levi can set her food down. She says, “Thanks, I completely forgot about dinner!” and shovels a spoonful of broth into her mouth. Her eyelids sink and her shoulders sag and she grins, and happily takes another mouthful. 

He remembers waiting until she is done, eyes roving the room and fingers itching to bleach the entire space. It is _filthy_.

“You should clean,” he says, and Hange lifts her gaze to his. “You’ll get sick in this mess.” She waves him off with a flick of her wrist and wipes the residue from the bowl with the last chunk of bread.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, “it isn’t that bad, and you don’t get sick from clutter.”

He remembers the bristle of his shoulders and the drop of his stomach. He takes the tray and turns on his heel.

“Remember to  _eat_  next time, shitty-glasses.”

He remembers closing the door, remembers the breath leaving his lungs and the bitter taste in the back of his throat as he tries to convince himself that Hange is right.

* * *

The second time he bathes her, it’s because she is broken.

She isn’t at supper, and when he steps into his bathroom to brush his teeth before bed he finds her curled up in the tub, naked and shivering, cold water pooled around her hips and her eyes glassy and staring.

She doesn’t say anything when he pulls the plug, or when he unfastens what remains of her goggles from around her head and drops them in the waste bin, or when he rinses the blood and dirt from her hair and shoulders before filling the tub back up. She presses her mouth to her knees while he massages soap into her scalp, tightens her grip around her shins when he rinses it out, one hand cupped across her forehead to stop suds running into her eyes.

He smooths conditioner into the tips of her hair and watches her profile, watches her eyes stare, unseeing, at the wall opposite her. Her fingertips are pressed into the flesh of her calves, digging into new bruises and old scars and it is only when Levi has rinsed the conditioner from her hair and is smoothing a cloth over the back of her neck that she chokes.

Her shoulders jump and shudder and her spine bends, body curling in on itself as she fights to cry quietly.

He remembers scrubbing down her back, remembers the tinge of pink that trails through the water as it runs over open wounds. He remembers the breath she sucks in and the clench of her jaw as she grits her teeth, entire _galaxies_  of pain spreading in her chest, expanding, with nowhere to go but up and out in screams and sobs that she refuses to give.

He cleans her arms and legs and torso, rinses blood from the cloth and smooths it over her forehead, her chin, her tear-lined cheeks. She looks at him with blood-shot eyes and a wobbling lip, and when Levi empties the tub and pulls her to stand, wraps her in a towel and helps her step over the rim she sinks to the floor.

He looks at the tub, looks at the lines of soap suds ringing around the edges, looks at the pink-tinged bubbles at the plug hole, then looks down at Hange.

He remembers deciding – for the first time in his memory – that she is more important.

* * *

It is later in the night, when she is dressed in one of his night-shirts and kneeling on the floor by the bed with Levi seated on the mattress behind her, running his comb through her hair and trailing his fingers through the ends of it, when she speaks.

“I lost everyone,” she says, and Levi halts his movements. “My whole team. They’re all-,” she sucks in a shaking breath, “they’re all  _dead_. Everyone is dead.”

Levi tugs on the ends of her hair and says, quiet and a little unsure, “I’m right fucking here,” and Hange turns her face into his knee and nods. He feels each long, calculated breath she takes against his leg, and after a minute she pulls away and wipes her eyes.

She doesn’t ask before she crawls beneath his bed sheets. He remembers watching her as she tucks herself against his pillows, long, slender legs curled up against her chest and her eyes sliding closed. He remembers settling in his chair, remembers the twitch of her brows and the flutter of her lids as the first grips of sleep take her, remembers the smile that threatens the corners of his mouth.

He remembers thinking for the first time that Hange Zoe is…sort of beautiful, in her sloppy, abnormal, sleep-deprived way.

He remembers the ache in his gut, remembers the  _need_ to look after her swelling in his chest, remembers thinking he didn’t want this to happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be one more chapter for this - one more bit of Levihan (hopefully fluff but who knows), so keep an eye out, and thank you for reading/liking/commenting/bookmarking!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so here it is - the last li'l installment to go in this fic. Sorry for the wait, and I hope you enjoy!

He has decades hunching his shoulders and centuries weighing on his mind, the first time he remembers thinking about love. 

She is eccentric and chaotic and brilliant, a mess of the most captivating kind and he remembers the tint of light against print-smudged lenses, the sweeps and arcs of her arms and the delicate ripple of fingers over dirt-clouded water as she animates thoughts and theories and schemes and he thinks for the first time that maybe, maybe this is what love feels like.

He remembers the darkness pressing in against the window, thick and heavy and pouring like fog into every nook and crevice and it dances at the edges of his candlelight, ducking and weaving closer and closer as the wax burns away, and he watches it out the corner of his eyes while he loosens the straps of Hange’s goggles and lays them on the counter.

She is filthy, grime and sweat sticking to her skin and trails of dry, crusted blood webbing out from inconsequential cuts and scrapes across her hands, and Levi remembers catching her flailing limbs and dunking them beneath the waterline, remembers the affronted huff of air against his cheek and the way she rolls her shoulders, thin, muscle-bound arms flexing beneath the press of his fingers.

It has been four – _four_ – days since she last bathed, and he remembers her telling him that her research was more important, that she was dancing on the edge of a breakthrough and there was no time to spare for insignificant things like _cleaning_ and _eating_ and _sleeping_ , and as he rings out a cloth and trails it over the welts peeling over her shoulders, he can’t help wondering what the discomfort rolling in his gut might mean.

He thinks that maybe, love is in the ache in his chest and the warmth of his cheeks and the desperate, clawing need to be near to her, to listen to her theories and her schemes, to watch the light dance in her eyes when she smiles or to smooth the frown pulling her brows when she’s stressed or angry or tired.

Maybe it’s in the prickle of his spine as he smooths suds up the mosaic of cuts and bruises and scars on her legs and the twitch of his fingers as he brushes a cloth up her sides, hands splaying too close to the places he is learning that he wants to touch.  

Maybe it’s in the lump in his throat, the burn in his lungs and the thud of his heart after each expedition, in the way his eyes dart, wide and panicked and frantic, over the throng of returning soldiers until he settles on her. Until he knows she is okay.

Maybe this is what love is.

And it is _terrifying_. 

* * *

Levi pointedly does _not_ sit with Hange at supper, the first day he decides that distance is what he needs. Attachment has proven to be nothing but painful and he thinks that losing one more friend might be more than he can take, and so he starts to pull away.     

She is excited, he remembers, body humming and eyes alight as she drops her tray onto the table opposite Erwin, and Levi waits until she is seated and tearing at her bread with her teeth before he strolls past and sits himself at the table across from them. He remembers the falter in her tone, remembers the burn of her gaze at the back of his head, remembers closing his eyes and pushing his food away when she clears her throat and continues a more subdued relay of her experiments.   

He listens to her with pricked ears and tapping knees, something like guilt unfurling in his gut, spilling into all the empty spaces,pressing up into the back of his throat and choking the air from his lungs. He remembers smoothing the tips of his fingers around the rim of his cup and letting her words wash over him, remembers the pull in his gut, the violent urge to _fuck_ his plan and sit with her like he wants to.

But then he remembers bitter wind and drowning rain, blood-matted red hair and half-bitten flesh and pain beyond pain, and he holds his ground.   

* * *

It is three weeks later, and his quarters have never been cleaner. He scrubs each day, remakes the bed and washes the sheets and polishes his gear until it shines. Every spare second is spent dusting and bleaching and waxing and he remembers staring at the thin, dry lines cracking across the backs of his hands, remembers the puffy, blistered skin at his finger-tips and in the folds of his knuckles, and it burns and stings and aches but it’s better than worrying.    

It keeps him occupied – keeps his mind off of Hange.

He remembers her curiosity, remembers the way her brows furrow and her lips dip low at the corners every time he brushes past her, remembers every _I’m busy_ and _I don’t have time_ and _I don’t care_ that rolls off his tongue, bitter and untrue but necessary. He doesn’t need another friend to lose.

But he remembers the worry, the anxiety that gnaws at his gut whenever her name comes into his head. He remembers the constant barrage of questions – is she eating? Is she sleeping? Is she bathing? Is she _okay?_ – that plague him every time he gives his mind an inch to wander and he remembers the twitch of his fingers and the huff of his breath, the smell of bleach and the sting of blisters as he fights the urge to check on her by battling the grime between the floorboards instead.

* * *

He doesn’t remember exactly _when_ he loses sight of her, but he remembers the way his muscles seize, skin stretched tight over his knuckles and his eyes as wide as they go, darting and twitching and straining to catch sight of her in the confusion.

He remembers blood, sticky and steaming, burning into his clothes and scolding his skin everything is too hot and too chaotic and Hange is _nowhere_.

But he doesn’t have time to think about it – shadows bare down on him, snapping maws and grinning teeth and outstretched fingers and he can’t spare a second more worrying about her, but even as his blades slice through heavy, heated flesh and the world spins around him, he cannot stop looking.

**

He is bone-tired and ill with worry, riding back through the gates and into the town. Their losses are great but even in the dwindled numbers he cannot make out the mess of her hair or the glint of her glasses and every Hange-less sweep of their assemblage makes him feel sick to his stomach.

He remembers asking Erwin, tired-eyed and aching and desperate, if he has seen her or heard her or _anything_ , and he remembers the dip of his brow and the shake of his head, remembers the solid, calloused hand gripping his shoulder and squeezing the bunched muscles.

“Go get cleaned up, we’ll meet in the morning,” says Erwin, and Levi can only nod and turn on his heel and walk on numb feet and stiff legs back to his room.

* * *

It isn’t the first time he’s found her in his bathroom, but he doesn’t remember a time he has ever felt so relieved to see her there; it hits him hard, pressing and powerful and it nearly knocks his knees out where he stands.

He remembers the blood oozing down over her hip, slipping over the lip of the tub and weaving thin, pink stains all the way to the drain. She is black and blue, painted in large, discoloured blotches all across her torso and he remembers watching her rib cage lift and shift, jerking and uneven with every heaved breath. Her goggles sit off to one site, one lens cracked beyond repair, and in their place she wears a pair of glasses. 

He remembers watching shaking, delicate fingers dance over a yawning gash on her side, pulling a line of surgical thread and knitting the skin together. She is pale, sickly and exhausted and Levi crosses the distance between them and peels her hands away. He remembers the glazed, half-beaten expression on her face when she looks at him, bare and pained and vulnerable under his gaze and all he does is set her hands out of the way and pick the thread out of the wound.

“You need to clean it, idiot, or it’ll get infected.” 

He remembers a lot of quiet, after that. She doesn’t speak as he cleans her, save for the occasional hiss or groan and when he leans close and begins picking a new length of thread through the edges of the wound, she whimpers and presses her mouth to his shoulder to muffle the sound.

And he hates it.

He hates every second he has his fingers pressed to her stress-heated skin; every tiny, involuntary noise he drags from her with each press and wipe and pull makes his stomach knot tighter, twisting and balling until it is heavy as lead in his gut.

He remembers carrying her to bed – she is heavy; bone bound in muscle and skin and _fight_ and he remembers thinking that he was stupid to worry, stupid to believe for one second that she might not make it home. He doesn’t bother dressing her, just lays her against the mattress and pulls the sheets up over her bandaged torso and she turns into his pillow and sighs. It’s a familiar sight, and the normalcy of it is soothing.

“Thanks,” she says, rubbing at one eye beneath her glasses, and then she says, “sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Levi says, and he lights a low candle by the bedside and settles in his chair to watch her.

“For barging in, I guess,” she says. “The med-bay was crowded and I didn’t know where else to go. Forgot you were _ignoring_ me for a minute there.”

Levi’s eyes pinch and he remembers wanting to say that he _wasn’t_ ignoring her, but he was, and he’s above lying to her by now. He shrugs a shoulder, folds one leg over the other. Hange readjusts herself on the mattress, brow furrowing as she settles, and then she looks him in the eye and smiles.

It’s unnerving, and Levi has to fight to stop himself shying away from her gaze. She doesn’t say anything, but he remembers the _pressure_ , like she’s begging for a secret to be spilled and he is tipping the glass, and before he has time to _think_ there are words filtering through his teeth.

He doesn’t tell her the whole story (there is too much and it's too long and he doesn’t think he could bring himself to even if he wanted to), but he brushes over his mother’s death, reminds her of the friends he has lost, curses filth and disease and his own inability to protect and it’s a clumsy confession, full of holes and slurs and short on real words but Hange listens all the same.

He remembers the nod of her head when he falls silent and all she says is, “okay,” and then, “it’s late,” and she slides back across the mattress and pats the empty space in her wake.

He is sitting on the edge of the bed, toeing off his boots when her hand fists into the back of his shirt. He peeks over one shoulder, brow raised, and she says, “Just know you can’t get rid of me that easy." She presses her thumb to her chest and grins in the candlelight. "Neither dirt nor avoidance can take me. Sooner you face the fact that you’re stuck with me the better, short-stuff.”

He remembers the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth and he leans around, tugs her glasses from the bridge of her nose and folds them onto the bedside table.

“Whatever you say, four-eyes.”

* * *

He is battle-worn and aching and tired, the second time he thinks about love.

He remembers scooting her further along the mattress, slipping onto the sheets beside her and resting on the pillow - it's warm and a little damp from where her hair has been, and he hooks an arm behind his head and rolls his eyes to look at her.

He thinks that maybe, love is in the warm, steady feel of her breath against his cheek as she shuffles close enough to bump her forehead to his temple.  

Maybe it’s in the loose curl of her fist where she rests it on his chest – maybe it’s in the way his heart beats against her clenched knuckles, or the way his cheeks warm, or the way his arm aches to loop around her, fingers itching to card into her hair.

Or maybe it’s in the way he licks his lips, thinks about pressing a kiss to her forehead – she’s so close he can smell his soap on her skin and in her hair and it wouldn’t take much, just a twist of his neck and a tilt of his head and it'd be so easy because she’s _right there_.

Maybe this is what love is.

And he remembers thinking that maybe, it isn’t so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyyy hope that wasn't a huge disappointment lmao. Anyways guys and gals and everything else, you can follow me on tumblr @ someone-stole-my-shoes if you ever wanna talk levihan with me (and also I started watching haikyuu!! so like???? someone fangirl with me????) 
> 
> Anyway thank you very very VERY much for all the comments and kudos and bookmarks, you're all lovely and I appreciate the shit out of every one of you god bless.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a little painful I won't lie to ya, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so here you go! Let me know what you thought in the comments, or follow me @ someone-stole-my-shoes on tumblr for more of the same kind of crap


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